programme on clare house school

[melsy]

Does anyone know why this shcool is soo good , missed the begining. DH and I are sitting here going oooh no will that be us in a few short years!!!

Which Clare House School? What programme?

Just found the programme info - it's the school up the road from us. Apparently a very good school. have been top of the League for several years. Smallish school. Needless to say our DS doesn't attend.

It is in the top 5 schools in the country i think. I'm sure thats what they said.

I found it amazing that the one little girl was turned down at her 4 nearest schools. If they hadn't got a few places back at the last minute, where would she have gone.

It's something like 96th primary in the country for KS2 scores. Also quite a small single class entry school that feeds into good secondaries.

I know someone in the area and apparently most of the primaries around there are much of a muchness (i.e. good) but this one has attracted most attention.

Have to say I feel incredibly spoilt as i couldn't quite see what was so great about it...

Was curious, dont live in the area at all, its just seemed nuts the whole rigmarol. It seems a crazy thing to have to go through. If only all schools were supposedly as good as this one. I would like to know more about its policies and what makes it unusual as a compariosn for the future.

I couldn't see how the head could be doing the job of a head if she was spending all her time interviewing parents on where they lived, reading their solicitors' letters, looking at letterboxes (prog. 1), etc. What a ridiculous waste of time.

It made me really cross. Like she said with supportive parents and any half decent school, the children will do well. This competitiveness in state education is stupid.

I'm determined not to get caught up in it.

I think it must be a terrible situation to be in though.
My dd1 got in no prob at her school and now dd has got in because of the sibling rule. The little girl in the flat below though hasn't got in, she is 8th on the waiting list. It is her nearest school too.

My friend's son goes to clare house- and damm I meant to watch it and look out for him! She likes it because its small and has a reputation for being a very caring school. In Bromley though tha whole situation seems a bit mad the "favoured" school seems to flip every few years and for a while evryone goes mad trying to get their child in. Calre house probably has more pressure than most every year as it is a single class entry.

It's so different from down here (devon) where parental choice really does exist as so few schools are oversubscribed.

jimjams, when I was in south devon over easter, I happened to glance at the parish magazine and saw that the primary nearest PILs was 5th best in the country - sigh. My inlaws' neighbours are rich and could easily afford private if they wanted to, but send their daughter to this local state school. We were looking at Ivybridge as a possible place to move to and apparently all four primaries are very good. Soooo... different to here.

I shouldn't complain really. My sons' school is good and very small (22 or so to a class) and very oversubscribed at reception level. But 4 new children joined this term - two in year 1 and two in year 3, showing that even in such an oversubsribed school vacancies do crop up.

I was fascinated by the programme.

What amazed me was the fact that the head knew that parents had accepted other offers/withdrawn from the waiting list etc.

We have a lot of applicants who apply to us as an "insurance". When they get into one of the highly competitive selective schools in the borough they don't bother to tell us or reject our offer. So in September we always have loads of kids just not turn up. Seems heavenly to have parents that actually tell you they have another place - especially those that are on the waiting list.

I think the reason the head knew was because she had issued conditional offers only. Each parent then had to go through a procedure to prove that they were genuine and presumably those who had accepted offers elsewhere didn't bother with this so were automatically deleted from the list.

Also, she probably found out that others had withdrawn from the waiting list when she called to offer them a place.

That's how our School Admissions works.

Policy is Catchment, Siblings, then who is nearest.

When they offer you a place, you then have to provide "proof" that the child actually lives at the address, ie Child Benefit documents. If this is acceptable, you then confirm whether you want the place or not.

They have "got rid" of loads of applicants by implementing this method - in the past, catchment children were missing out because people were giving "false" addresses, ie giving family members addresses.

This year (2004-05) they have 60 Reception places (30 each for September and January) and they have 110 applicants. The places were offered in March, then they check out the paperwork.

I watched both of these and worried as there is a similar situation here for the local secondary school and some parents in my ds's class are thinking of buying flats just to get their kids in

I was amazed by that! I could not believe it. I think in some ways those parents could be heading for a fall, they have pinned all their hopes on the school, what if it doesn't work out for their child?

When we chose our house I did actually have a quick think about schools. We have 11 schools within walking distance of us (at least 4 within a 2 minute walk) so I felt very very lucky watching that programme. Even if these schools are not the best in the country

It does seem unfair that some parents can "buy" there way into the best schools in the borough. It just means that a lot of the local children that would have really benefitted from that placement have lost out. We had a similar problem when trying to get ds into a popular school. we knew of at least 4 parents that had used grandmas address and yet lived a lot further than we did - which is really unfair but what can you do? Eventually we sent ds to one of the less popular, more local schools. He has done really well and I can honestly say it was a blessing that he didn't get into the other one.

An important point made by the headteacher of the school in question was that, with the right support, i.e. interested and involved parents, any child will do well in any school, so all this faffing around trying to get your child into a particular school is pointless.

When DS1 was due to start school, we had a choice of 3 schools within walking distance. We chose the one we did because it was divided into infants and juniors, i.e. separate schools, but on the same site. We felt that DS1 would do better in a smaller environment. The other 2 schools were infants and juniors combined. We had no problem getting DS1 into our chosen school as, at that time, it was not oversubscribed. Then of course DS2 and DS3 got in on the siblings rule. Only one year after DS1 started, the school was having to apply certain criteria as there were more applications than places. More and more estates have been built nearby, but no new schools. The school was built to serve a certain area and we now have the ridiculous situation where people living quite close to the school, i.e. in houses and roads which the school was built to serve, are being refused a place because the school is the nearest school to some of the new houses.

Cannot believe in this day and age when we all pay so much council tax/income tax that people are being denied acces to certain schools. All children should have an equal education. Fair enough if you can pay for it but in a way we are with the ridiculous amount of taxes we pay.

Cannot believe in this day and age when we all pay so much council tax/income tax that people are being denied acces to certain schools. All children should have an equal education. Fair enough if you can pay for it but in a way we are with the ridiculous amount of taxes we pay.